DCEmu Featured News Articles

Apple has seemingly conquered the hearts and minds of US consumers this Christmas ahead of the games industry.
A new survey by Nielsen found that 44 per cent of kids aged between six and 12 years old put an iPad at the top of their Christmas wish list. That was followed by iPod Touch (30 per cent) and iPhone (27 per cent).
Nintendo’s 3DS was the sixth most sought after device with 25 per cent but was also the highest placed games console. Interestingly, fewer kids wanted a PlayStation Move than a Nintendo Wii, though PS3 won a bigger share than Xbox 360.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ipad-...h-lists/087423 ...

The Arvon Foundation has launched a dedicated games writing course, featuring the likes of Heavenly Sword writer Rhianna Pratchett.
The five-day, residential course will be tutored by Naomi Alderman and David Varela, both of whom have worked on Mind Candy's ARG Perplex City, with Alderman also writing for The Guardian.
"Gaming is now the largest entertainment industry in the world - it covers everything from FarmVille to Call Of Duty, from Wii games to alternate reality adventures," Alderman said. "Increasingly, gamelike ways of telling stories are bleeding through to older forms too - theatre, TV and even novels are becoming more interactive.
"So it's a perfect moment for any writer to start to learn what's going on in the world of games, and how to use those skills and techniques."
Pratchett added: "Game writing is the latest cresting wave of the narrative world and this course will ensure you have the knowledge to ride it."
The first course starts on January 30 at The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre in West Yorkshire, with prices starting at £575. For more, follow the source link below.
Source: Arvon Foundation

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/games-w...ourse-launches ...

Id Software co-founder John Carmack has admitted that the planned release of the Doom 3 source code will be delayed amid fears of a patent violation.
Earlier this month Carmack said the source code was "packaged and tested" and would be released once it had been cleared by the developer's legal team. That was taken as a sign that its release was imminent.
However, Carmack tweeted yesterday to say: "Lawyers are still skittish about the patent issue around 'Carmack's Reverse', so I am going to write some new code for the Doom 3 release."
Carmack's Reverse is a shadow stencilling technique first devised in 1997. Carmack discovered the algorithm during development ofDoom 3, but a patent had already been applied for, and was granted to Creative Labs in 2002.
Shacknews reports that Id struck a deal with Creative to use the technique in Doom 3 without requiring payment, but there are fears that the company would not be so happy about its patented technology being released as open source.
The planned release of the Doom 3 source code continues an Id tradition of giving away its old engines when it releases a game on a new one, in this case Rage, which was released in October and runs on Id Tech 5.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/carmack...-3-source-code ...

Nintendo Of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has explained the company's reluctance to sell paid DLC for its games.
Speaking to AOL's games blog, Fils-Aime explained that Nintendodevelopers were wary of selling additional content because they want to give consumers the "complete experience" on day one.
"We're interested in [DLC] to the extent that it makes sense to the consumer," he said. "And it's interesting: I've had this conversation with a number of our key developers, and their mentality is: 'Reggie, when we sell a game, we want the consumer to feel that they've had a complete experience".
"Now, in addition, if we want to make other things available, great, and we'll look at that. But what we're unwilling to [do is] sell a piece of game upfront and, if you will, force a consumer to buy more later. That's what they don't want to do, and I completely agree.
"I think the consumer wants to get, for their money, a complete experience, and then we have opportunities to provide more on top of that."
Fils-Aime's comments are enlightening, and do much to explain why3DS did not have DLC mechanisms in place on the day it launched. A system update, due this month in Japan and in the UK in December, will set that right, but it appears Nintendo's belated action has been motivated by thirdparties.
Developers and publishers think of DLC in a markedly different way. Earlier this week Gears Of War 3 developer Rod Fergusson emphasised DLC's importance in combating the second-hand trade, telling Game Informer magazine: "It's not about, 'Oh, we had this map left over'...it's keeping the disc in the tray. In a used game culture that you have to actively fight against, I think DLC is one of the ways that you do that."

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/fils-ai...-wary-paid-dlc ...

Hardware manufacturers will wise up to the fact that creating dedicated consoles is a futile business strategy for the future of video games, according to Eidos life president Ian Livingstone.
Discussing his personal projections for the future of the interactive entertainment business, the industry veteran suggested that the closed environments created by multiple home and portable devices will eventually disappear allowing intellectual property to spread across any and all gaming formats.
"Hardware manufacturers will finally realise the fact that manufacturing hardware is a mug's game," Livingstone told the Launch Conference in Birmingham, yesterday.
"It's all about intellectual property and I think you'll see IP moving across all platforms and all devices. Walled gardens will one day disappear."
Portable hardware will the dominant gaming devices, said Livingstone, driven by a standard language in HTML5 - something that could become bigger for web-based gaming than social networks like Facebook.
"The dominant platform for me is going to be mobile," he offered. "Android might eat Apple's lunch but a connected device allowing gaming on the move is absolutely, undoubtedly the future."
"HTML 5 is going to create a real opportunity, a single platform with a single interface. That's going to be a bigger platform perhaps than Facebook."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...me-livingstone ...

Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has grossed $775 million in five days, breaking the $650 million record set by previous CoD title Black Ops.
According to Activision, the game was the best-selling title of all time at the top five retailers in North America, and it set online records on Xbox Live with 3.3 million unique users on November 8.
Life-to-date sales for the entire Call of Duty series have exceeded $6 billon worldwide.
"With $775 million of sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in its first five days, Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for three consecutive years across all forms of entertainment," commented Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft said that more than 7 million multiplayer hours were logged on Xbox Live on launch day.
"As I have said all year, we have been singluarly focused on making a spectacular game for our fans, and nothing else. Our incredible teams at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games have done just that," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing.
"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 continues to thrill core gaming enthusiasts as well as draw new people into the medium, which is not an easy balancing act. But it takes more than a great game. I would also like to thank our incredible team for the pulling off the launch of the year, as well as our retail partners around the world. But most of all, I want to thank our fans. They are our toughest critics, and our biggest supporters, and none of this would be possible without them."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...775m-in-5-days ...

Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix has signed with Epic Games to use its Unreal Engine 3 in multiple titles.
"It is a pleasure to provide Square Enix with an exceptional game engine that will help them bring thrilling new experiences to legions of fans all over the world," commented Taka Kawasaki, territory manager of Epic Games Japan.
"Many Western games have achieved great success with the Unreal Engine, and this milestone reflects the Japanese development community's trust in our technical prowess. We can't wait to see how Square Enix fuses the power of Unreal Engine 3 with its beautiful characters, enthralling storylines and fantastic gameplay."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ultiple-titles ...

A recent survey by analysts Cowen and Company shows that casual gamers have abandoned traditional handheld devices, with only 26 per cent playing on a Nintendo DS, 3DS or a Sony PSP.
"Over the last five years, the penetration of dedicated handheld platforms into survey respondents self-identifying as casual gamers has declined by 29 per cent, with the vast majority of that decline occurring in the last two years," states the report.
"We believe cellphone and smartphone gaming is significantly impacting demand for dedicated handheld devices."
Only 37 per cent of those surveyed played games on a dedicated handheld device, while 52 per cent played on their phone.
"We do not view the decline of casual handheld gaming as a particular problem for the US publishers, as they have migrated their exposure away from dedicated handheld platforms, and in some cases (particularly EA) have invested significantly in phone and tablet platform game development."
"However, we do view this trend as a negative one for Sony and especially Nintendo."
The full report also suggested while consoles were holding up well against more casual gaming models, "there is a substantial gap between the average prices that our respondents were willing to pay and prevailing hardware retail price points." It suggests a price cut would help to boost sales and the console market.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...market-article ...

The Flash edition of Unreal Tournament 3 looks superior to the PS3 and 360 versions that were released four years ago, Epic Games vice president Mark Rein has said.
In early October, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney took stage at Adobe's Max 2011 event to demonstrate Unreal Tournament 3 running through a browser in real time.

The feat was made possible with Adobe’s Flash Player 11, which utilises a hardware accelerated, programmable graphics pipeline. That means triple-A-style content can run on a web browser application that’s no bigger than a few megabytes.
The sheer astonishment of Epic running current gen games in Flash led some to believe that Sweeney’s demonstration was smoke-and-mirrors, but Rein says the achievement was real.
“I can’t blame you if you couldn’t imagine a Facebook game at the level of Unreal Tournament 3 before today,” he told Develop.

“We’re not just talking about triple-A console quality on the web, we’re actually showing it onscreen, in a web browser, playing inside Flash.
“We chose as our demo a fully playable level from Unreal Tournament 3, and it turned out to look even better than the version we shipped on Xbox 360 and PS3, with improvements like global illumination, better shadows, and god rays.”
Unreal Tournament 3, published by Midway across 2007 and 2008, was said to have suffered from technical problems during its frantic multi-platform development. However, the game recieved positive critical reception upon release.
Rein said Epic is “just getting started” with its work on Flash. It is not known if Unreal Tournament 3 will be released in full on Flash.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...etter-on-Flash ...